Local Man Makes Big Sweep In The Vacuum Cleaner Business

As owner of the Discount Vacuum Center in Hampton for the past 18 years, Poquoson resident Charlie B. Pugh Sr. has seen some strange things fall out of serviced vacuum cleaners.

The most interesting service job was about 12 years ago when Pugh arrived one morning to open his shop.

"There was a lady standing near the door with a vacuum cleaner and two potential customers standing about five feet away from her," says Pugh. "That looked odd, for them to stand so far away from her.

"It turned out that she thought her pet snake got caught in the vacuum cleaner while she was vacuuming the night before."

Pugh says the distressed customer told him her pet snake was a 3-foot boa constrictor.

"I turned the cleaner upside down and took the bottom off, and sure enough he was in there."

Pugh says he just reached in the vacuum cleaner and grabbed the still-alive snake by its head and neck and casually pulled it out. He then turned the snake over to the relieved customer.

"I realized there were only four poisonous snakes in America (and) the boa constrictor is not one of them."

When Pugh went into the vacuum cleaner business in 1949, he saw more doors then snakes.

He started his career as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman for Electrolux and became a master of his craft.

Pugh was once recognized as the top salesman in the Roanoke branch of Electrolux after he recorded 61 door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales in one month. But if he were to average his sales it would have been about 25 to 30 vacuum cleaners a month, he says.

"There was good and bad, feast and famine," he says. "I ate steak one week and would hope that next week I had enough beans in the pot."

Pugh stuck with sales for 10 years before he was offered a management postion with Electrolux. He stayed in management for 11 years.

"I had a desire to be totally my own boss," Pugh says about leaving his management job with the national vacuum cleaner company. He thought about owning his own business for about five years prior to his decision.

He opened the Discount Vacuum Center in April 1971.

Pugh credits his son, Chuck Pugh, for helping him make the business successful. Now the store's manager, Chuck Pugh has helped his father with the shop for 11 years.

Pugh says he's in semi-retirement and is adding to his home in his spare time.